Thursday, 28 November 2013

I
feel slightly bad that I've seen numerous searches hitting this blog
looking for the Lore of Dark Magic, and of course they're all finding
the old Lore from the previous book. Now that there is a new book, I
should really be updating the review. If you actually were looking
for the Lore from the previous book, you can find it here.

Lores
of Magic: The Lore of Dark Magic

Dark
Elves are the only race with access to Dark Magic, although nowadays
they have the full range of the Lores of Battle Magic in the rulebook
to choose from as well. So, with 9 Lores to choose from, let's hope
Dark Magic stacks up.

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

Throughout
the World Series, we were tracking how each army performed each
round. Ideally this will help us to decide whether to re-use some of
the match-ups next time around, assuming that the arrival of 9th
edition and any new army books hasn't completely stuffed with our
plans.

I'm
going to walk through each table and give a brief summary of how they
all went. Below is a table that shows all of the matches and gives a
simplistic rating based on their battle point differences, but the
table-by-table section will give a better picture.

Yeah, good luck reading that without opening it properly...

The
analysis is always going to be a bit difficult by the time you allow
for some wild dice rolls in some of the games. It's also going to be
slanted by the fact that the tournament included plenty of players
with a wide variety of skill levels – numerous Masters players and
some who almost never attend tournaments. Such varying levels of
experience clashing can produce some misleading results. Anyway,
let's have a look at how things went...

Thanks
to Ben over at Eureka Wargames Association for the use of some of his
pictures here. You can read his account of the tournament here.

Table
1: The Underground

Scenario:
Watchtower (with modifications)

Skaven
vs Night Goblins

Battle
Points: Skaven 76, Night Goblins 64

Results:
Night Goblins 3, Skaven 3, 1 draw

Table 1

This
was probably the most wacky of the tables we set up. It involved an
all-Goblin army against a Skaven army, fighting it out on the club's
cave terrain. It was the only table to use the Watchtower scenario,
and in this case the objective was not a building at all, but an open
section of terrain (a chunk of warpstone being mined from the ground,
made for the occasion by Owen of Terrain for Hippos).

This
was always going to be a crazy game. And with the scenario, (control
of the warpstone was worth 800 points) results were predictably wild.
I know of games where the thing ended up controlled by a single Night
Goblin Fanatic, and another where a single Troll survived to hold it
after his unit passed a Leadership 4 Stupidity test to move onto
it... The caves also caused some people a bit of grief, especially
when the instruction to ignore the 1” rule for the impassable cave
walls failed to get through in at least one game.

Anyway,
after all this madness, each army walked away with 3 wins, and
somehow one game even ended in a draw. All in all, I can't imagine a
more ideal table for the tournament, and I'm glad we went through
with it.

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

This
is the second part of my account of the Warhammer World Series
tournament held on the weekend. You can find the first part here.

Game
3 – David Lowe

Table
16 – Super Sub-Optimal

Scenario
– Battleline

Lizardmen

Saurus
Oldblood

General;
Cold One; Great Weapon; Light Armour

Luckstone

Skink
Chief on Ancient Stegadon

Spear;
Light Armour; Battle Standard

Enchanted
Shield

2
Giant Blow Pipes

4
Skink Crew

Skink
Priest

Magic
Level 1; Lore of Beasts

20
Saurus Warriors

Shield;
Standard; Musician; Spawn Leader

10
Skink Skirmishers

Lustrian
Javelin & Shield; Shield

10
Skink Skirmishers

Lustrian
Javelin & Shield; Shield

2
Jungle Swarms

3
Kroxigors

Great
Weapon

1
Razordon Hunting Pack

3
Skink Handlers

1
Razordon Hunting Pack

3
Skink Handlers

Troglodon

David's
army:

Beastmen

Beastlord

General;
Shield

Sword
of Swift Slaying

Armour
of Destiny

Gorebull

Frenzy;
Heavy Armour; Battle Standard

Brass
Cleaver

Charmed
Shield

Gnarled
Hide

Bray
Shaman

Lore
of Beasts; Magic Level 1; Braystaff

Ruby
Ring of Ruin

24
Gor Herd

Shield;
Standard; Musician; Foe-Render

9
Ungor Raiders

Short
Bow; Musician

Tuskgor
Chariot

Tuskgor
Chariot

10
Chaos Warhounds

1
Razorgor

1
Razorgor

Jabberslythe

Spawn
of Chaos

After
a strong start, my game against Hieu had dropped me back into the
middle of the pack. My next opponent would be David Lowe. After
looking at the lists, David chose the Beastmen because he was more
familiar with them. As it happens, this was another questionable
choice – the Lizardmen definitely had the upper hand on this table
throughout the tournament.

This
game started late because I was chasing a couple of things from a TO
perspective, and the game itself didn't exactly move like greased
lightning. We didn't get to the end, but enough things happened to
get a result. I didn't get a ton of photos because I was a little
distracted.

That Carnosaur is really a Troglodon. As if anyone in their right mind has the proper model. Poor, useless sod...

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

The
weekend saw the second running of that most unusual of tournaments,
the Warhammer World Series. I was organising the event, however once
things are up and running, the World Series is not the most difficult
tournament to run. So I was also able to play the “bye-breaker”,
which was needed because we had an odd number of players. So Baron
von Gumby, most feared of non-competitive players, would ride once
more! As usual, I took photos during my games and will give a bit of
a run-through of how they went.

For
those not following earlier, the World Series involves players
arriving at a table and finding 2 pre-determined armies waiting for
them. They then dice off to choose between the armies, the loser of
the roll-off gets to choose table sides, and they play the scenario
assigned to the table (generally Battleline). The full list of tables
and armies has already been published, but I will repeat the ones I
played on here for convenience as we go along.

Also,
as I was the gumby player, I would not be rolling off with my
opponent to choose armies – I would let them choose, and then we
would roll off for table sides. Given I wrote nearly all of the
pairings, it seemed the only fair way to do things. Besides, then I
wouldn't have to try to choose what to use...

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

My Empire army has accumulated 3 painted Battle Standard Bearer models over time - one mounted, one on foot, and the special character Ludwig Schwartzhelm as a bonus. Normally this would be enough, but there are a couple of factors here. My army now consists of 2 distinct sections - the purple and white of Krakenberg, and a smaller contingent wearing the yellow and green of Stirland. The existing BSBs are painted for the former, with nobody left to fly the flag for the latter (Ludwig looks a little too important for the Stirlanders). I was aware of this shortcoming, but the Stirland group is not overly large, so I figured it was unlikely to be fielded as a force in its own right anyway. Of course, that was without planning for the Warhammer World Series, and its habit of splintering my larger armies into numerous smaller forces. This time around my Empire will be used for 4 different armies, and one of those forces is entirely in Stirland colours. In the end this was the prompt I needed to get moving and make them a BSB of their own.I have a fairly large pile of second-hand Empire models, and I found what appeared to be the exact same BSB character, mounted and on foot. I figured this would work well enough for me. I removed the skeleton-angel-thingy banner that comes in the multi-part plastic character kit from both of them, and gave them both magnetised shoulders instead. Then I made up a new magnetised banner arm for them to share, using a Greatsword standard. I figured I would never need them both to be standard bearers at the same time (go away, World Series. I can see you in the corner, plotting to upset my plans again), so I plan to make them a couple of extra arms so that they can also stand in as regular characters. I don't know what I'll do for that other arm yet, but I didn't really have time to dwell on it at this point - I'll come back to it.

A BSB, and an Empire Captain with a crippling battle injury - loss of a limb at the shoulder.

Monday, 11 November 2013

It's taken a while, but here are the remaining pairings we will need to accommodate our current number of registered players. I have also added these match-ups to the main list I released earlier.Just a few more days to go, folks...

Friday, 8 November 2013

4 days after I decided to try to sculpt a couple of Mangler Squigs from scratch, the second one is completed. He is very different from the first one, but in the end I am pretty happy with them both. They came together much faster than I feared they would, and with only a rough idea in my head of how I wanted them to look, I'm very satisfied with the final product.This guy was only half-finished at the start of today. Late last night I had attacked him with a bit of green stuff and a dremel in a few places, before deciding I had done enough and I was starting to handle and have to re-work what I was doing before it had set (the dangers of over-enthusiasm). Then this afternoon I managed to find the time to pull out more green stuff, and get him to a point that I decided was good enough.

This guy is much happier than the first one I made, who was clearly a real sour-puss. The teeth were one of the things I was most worried about on these guys, particularly with the open mouth. In the end I think they turned out fine, which was a relief.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

After spending much of Tuesday putting together my first home-made Mangler Squig, I was keen to get some paint on him and see how he turned out. I got my chance last night, and here is how he turned out:

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Or perhaps the title should really read: "mangled sculpted squigs", or something similar...I have a pretty large Orc and Goblin army, however it lacks any of the new bells and whistles that appeared in the latest army book. I have purchased a few Arachnaroks, but none of them are painted yet. And I don't even own any Mangler Squigs. When you add in the fact that I've never gotten around to painting any Pump Wagons, my army is missing a lot of the tricks to make it fun. It's something I've always been planning to address, but I've been focused on other things.When planning lists for the World Series however (just over a week away now), I made a list using my Night Goblins, and it just wouldn't have been enough fun without any Mangler Squigs. So I committed to a list that includes 2 of them, which means now I have to do something about it. And being a tight-ass who balks at the cost of one of the Finecast Mangler Squigs Games Workshop are peddling, I figured I would just make my own.After all, how hard could it be?Experienced, skilful sculptors and discerning lovers of miniatures may wish to stop reading now...

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Thanks largely to Duelling Paintbrushes, it's taken me a lot longer to get the army lists and match-ups organised for the World Series than I would have liked. Sorry to those who have been waiting to see them. Anyway, it's now 2 weeks from the tournament, and I've finally got almost all the pairings sorted. Here is what we've got, and the final few tables we should need will be announced shortly...You'll notice that most of the tables look like they're just going to be basic pitched battles. In the end, most scenarios just make games more unpredictable without necessarily adding more interest. As a result, I've generally shied away from them - given people are not using the same army over and over again, there is no real need for the extra random element.

EDIT 12/11/2013: The list now contains 18 pairings, which at the time of writing is the number we need to accommodate the registered players. I will put together a couple of reserve pairings, but these ones will all be used.Table
1 - The Underground

Friday, 1 November 2013

Well, it's now November, which means Duelling Paintbrushes is over. And, as predicted in my previous post, I have failed to achieve my original target. It comes as no surprise, but unfortunately I didn't even really get very close. By the end of October, I had painted a Sorceress, 10 Cold One Knights, and 15 Spearmen. I had built commenced painting of the two mounted characters I needed to do, but they were nowhere near finished - and I had only just managed to complete the assembly and undercoat the 12 Crossbowmen. Not exactly covering myself with glory, there. Oh well.Those mounted characters only got started very late in the process. I didn't really have the right models on hand. I knew I had a Malus Darkblade model kicking about (minus the old goofy cow-like Cold One he came with), so I figured he would do the job of a lord character. But I hadn't really worked out how I was going to make a BSB. When it came to the crunch, I ended up using a Cold One Knight's legs, a Corsair's torso, arms and head, and some extra spiky head-pieces from one of the Knights. The sea dragon cloak took some chopping and green-stuffing to get it to sit OK over the saddle, but it worked fine in the end.

Malus has traded in his ancient (and rather terrible) Cold One for a newer model.

My converted BSB. I was pretty happy with the pose, in the end.

I couldn't find a more exciting weapon for him, so he just stuck with a normal Corsair sword.

Sea dragon cloaks are not made to sit on Cold Ones. A bit of chopping and covering my handiwork with green stuff and the problem was solved.

By the end of the month, these guys had a couple of base colours on them and nothing else to speak of. They were probably about 10% painted. Not really inspiring, and certainly not usable. However, last night (November 1st - otherwise known as the day after the challenge was over) was painting night and I was determined to improve the situation. I was up until after 1 am (trying to multi-task between painting and constructing army lists for Warhammer World Series), but I'm calling these guys finished now.

My Dreadlord and BSB, ready for battle. They both have different coloured mounts from my regular Cold One Knights, to help them stand out.